HISTORY will record it as a mistake. History will point to a miscalculation and/or misinterpretation of a flawed by-law.
History will remember a one-sided preliminary final, marred by controversy, awarded to the loser.
No one can blame Tooleybuc Manangatang for taking its place in tomorrow’s grand final. Indeed, it would not be for the Saints to do otherwise.
But, clearly, the season’s most important week has been compromised. There was no winner on preliminary final day, and sadly the reserves grand final is likely to be played in an atmosphere of bitter cynicism.
According to the Central Murray Football Netball League’s independent tribunal, Kerang did not unfairly seek an advantage.
Officially, an administrative error saw Jake Schroeder take to the field with the Blues’ twos.
The league’s by-laws are publicly available on its website. Section 15 of the by-laws pertaining to football deals with players’ eligibility for finals.
Sub-section 1 states that a player must have played 20 per cent of a team’s home and away games to be eligible for finals.
The CMFNL season consists of 16 home and away games. Twenty per cent of 16 is 3.2.
If this rule was written to eliminate ambiguity, it hasn’t worked. There is no proviso in the rules to round up from the arrived-at figure of 3.2.
With hindsight, it is clear that, in the world of football stats, 0.2 is equal to one. The minimum requirement, therefore, is four games.
But the rule doesn’t state that. An unwritten rule is not a rule.
To arrive at 3.2 and interpret three as meeting, for all intents and purposes, the minimum requirement is mistaken. But the rule had to come into play, with a subsequent tribunal hearing, for it to be confirmed as a mistake.
Once the mistake was confirmed there was only one course of action according to the by-laws.
Conspiracy theories will live on. There are those who will say officials outside of the Kerang Football Club knew what was going on prior to the start of the game. That they were aware of the mistake but failed to act to bring it to Kerang’s attention before it was too late.
This, they say, explains why the matter came to a head as early as five minutes into the first quarter.
Rumours also suggested Kerang had been told that it would forfeit its first quarter score only. If this happened it is unfortunate, but there is no allowance for such a penalty under the league’s rules anyway.
Nor do the rules allow for Kerang to only be sanctioned by way of a fine. In fact, under the rules a fine remains subject to the discretion of the league.
But forfeiting the match is not. As hard as it might be for Kerang to hear, it was the only course of action available once the mistake was made.
It seems fair to say the punishment does not fit the crime. The rules must surely be reviewed. Perhaps changed. But it will be too late for Phil Birchmore’s team to take to the field tomorrow.
Some empathy is required now. For Kerang’s seconds, the winner of the preliminary final, now ineligible to take part in the premiership decider.
For Koondrook Barham, the minor premier which has worked tirelessly all year towards tomorrow’s game and is now facing having its hard work unfairly overshadowed. For Tooleybuc Manangatang, caught in the fall-out of a situation over which it has no control.
For the officials whose mistakes have come at so high a price and, most importantly, for a young footballer striving only to be the best that he could be.
There are no winners but, as Kerang president Andy Gray remarked on Wednesday, the situation has not cost anyone their life.
“We move on. We’re very disappointed, but the sun came up this morning,” he said.
